Raven can Bleed
by SoapHeller
Summary: After Sergeant Thaddeus hears some forbidden knowledge from Captain Thule's vox, Sergeants Tarkus and Avitus are forced to re-tell one of the more bizarre events of the Dark Crusade to their young brother, while its plot brings back some of Cyrus' worst memories from Kaurava.


**This writing is a adaptation of a few posts that I made in the storythread from 4chan /tg/ under the name of "Ranger" ('cause I love Quake that much) in a whole day. And since I don't think that my stuff is worthy of be in 1d4chan, I decided to post a fixed/updated version of its contents (the original reeks of orkish-like grammar) Basically, its "Love Can Bloom" from the Blood Ravens' POV, or at least it started that way.**

 **To the people who are still waiting for my Kuroinu fic, relax, I just didn't have the want to write it for a while, and making this relaxed me enough to keep going (I am now in a Warhammer phase, blame If the Emperor had a Text-To-Speech Devise series).**

* * *

So, how is Captain Thule's state?" Asked Sergeant Cyrus.

"Stable, but he is still believing that I'm Captain Angelos." Informed Sergeant Thaddeus "He did say something worrying."

"What it was?!" Inquired Cyrus, as Sergeant Tarkus and Sergeant Avitus went quickly to see what was going on.

"Well, he praised Brother Tarkus' actions in Angel Force, saying that the way he dealt with the Eldar witch was worthy of example, unlike, and I quote, 'That treacherous assassin from Kronus.'" Avitus relaxed and started to gliggle like a child while Tarkus facepalmed in a mix of horror and disgust. "I assume you know about it."

"Even I know about it and I wasn't there." Said Cyrus.

"This is not funny, Avitus. Brothers died for it." Interjected Tarkus.

"What happened?" Thaddeus asked, confused at seeing the unusual image of Avitus giggling and Tarkus trying to not explode in anger. Knowing the latter, it may had relation with Eldar.

"So, who will enlighten our young brother about it this time?" Asked Cyrus. "Please, Take your time, I don't want to send my scouts to proctect our relics like the last time."

"I will do it." Informed Tarkus, returning at his more usual calm self. Avitus stopped laughing and Cyrus nodded in relief, those Exitus rifles will have one more day at the service of the Emperor.

So Tarkus started "At the start of the Kronus Crusade, Captain Thule wanted to avoid conflict with the Imperial Guard forces deployed there despite orders from our Chapter Master to purge all the forces from the planet. We quickly learned that the original reason of their presence was to capture a eldar witch who outsmarted them before."

"Our Captain thought that if we showed them how it was done, they would be put in their places and leave us alone." Added Avitus. "But instead, they claimed it started a race of 'who can catch the xeno first', we won of course."

"Their refuge possesed the typical traps of those treacherous scum, including using Orks and Heretics as distractions to weaken us. But Captain Thule proved himself as a worthy Force Commander, killing those meat-shields, rescuing our brothers pinned by them, defending our outspot of the eldar hit-and-run tactics and destroying their Webgates, cutting both their reinforcements and their means to escape."

"Now here is when things got weird. First, the witch went mad and instead of run away, she charged at our brothers at melee and somehow she got away. Our Brother-Captain orderned to persue her and capture her, to know what she was doing in the planet, but instead we found guardsmen hiding inside the forest. Thule knew about it but told us to not open fire of them unless it was self-defence. Obviously they were hoping that the Eldar killed us to them they could grab the glory or at least kill the bastards who evaded us."

"But then we lost contact with a squad of Scouts and other of Assault Marines, we went their last knew location and we found their fallen bodies with wounds coming from Imperial weapons. It conviced our Captian that we could not solve the conflict against Lukas Alexander without spilling blood."

"A few days later, we found a lone human searching for our Headquarters, after being asked what he was doing there, he showed a rosette and presented himself as a Throne Agent of the Ordo Sicarius and he requested our help in deal with a case of high treason."

"Captain Thule, with the company of Chaplain Mikelus, Librarian Anteas and a few sergeants incluing us, was interrogated of what happened when we attacked the Eldar and if we managed to confirm the death of their Farseer. Once he got the answers he revealed what really happened."

"Before invading Kronus, Alexander requested the aid of the Officio Assassinorum because he knew his troops would fail him, and he got some Vindicares. The Agent's group was sent to look at them because apparently someone back in Terra didn't feel like working for two hours and released a few assassins without proper mental training, or as the Iquisition liked to say 'orks snipers acting unorky' and he suspected that Alexander got one of the defective ones. But before he could arrive at the planet, we already invaded the eldar stronghold, and little Lukas send one of them to off the Farseer before we got our hand of her. Guess who he sent to do the job?"

"Turns out, that the reason the witch haven't died yet was because that Vindicare betrayed the Imperium and went to consort with the witch!. How in His name you defect to the Eldar?! One thing is defecting to the Tau, but Eldar?!"

"Safe to say, everyone present minus Thule and Anteas acted with fury at the betrayal, which assured the agent that we were proper subjects of the Imperium. He explained that Lukas Alexander tried to take them down, and his lack of sucess confirmed to our 'friend' that Kronus would be better at the hands of the Blood Ravens."

"The bad news were that the agent discovered that his Inquisitor was a heretic who was using his position to sabotage Imperial operations around the sector, not even the Grey Knights were safe of his manipulations. That sure explained why I found one of them crying alone after a successful raid at an ork outpost without casualties."

"So we captured Pavonis, locking everyone else of a possible escape of Kronus, or so we thought. Victory Bay was also with ships ready to leave at the first order of Alexander. Captain Thule had to make preparations of the invasion with the Agent and the Grey Knights, who wanted to avenge the insult of the heretics at their fallen brother. I was happy that we would finally show the Emperor's Wrath at those traitors."

"Unlike Avitus, I was more concerned about how the Eldar witch conviced the Vindicare to switch sides, the Agent knew of my inquires and he decided to answer them. The reality was that the rogue Inquisitor somehow learned about how weaken the minds of the assassins without losing their skill in battle, so they would not be easly killed once their defection was clear, and the Vindicare was one of them. So you may ask, with his mind lacking proper defences, what was the reason he abandoned his soul to the foul enemies of Man?"

Then Avitus started to laugh without control, while Tarkus and Cyrus were preparing at anything that can gone wrong once Avitus finished.

"He fell in love with the Eldar."

"WHAT?!" Thaddeus reacted like a proper Imperial subject should do.

"Yes, you heard me" Confirmed Avitus with glee "The assassin fell in love with the race with the creepy ears, who lies more often than your average Word Bearer and arrogant enough to disgard the square because it remind them of a Grox and/or a Squig."

There was silence, as poor Thaddeus tried to process the information. Sure, he once said that if the eldar wanted forgiveness from the sin of being xenos, they should starting to build shrines in the Emperor's honor instead of attacking them, but someone willing going that far? He shivered at what his late Granma would say.

"So..." Thaddeus finally spoke. "...they were captured?"

"Thank the Emperor, yes we captured them" Said a relieved Tarkus "Not only we pacified the Imperial Guard in the assault at Victory Bay, the Agent with the aid of our brothers captured the traitor and the witch before they could escape. The Inquisitor instead was executed by Lukas Alexander himself, probaly after the latter learned about what we knew by his own methods."

"Then our Brother-Captain made a deal with the Agent, we get the witch for interrogations and the new Inquisitor got the traitor to make sure something like this would never happen again. He said that we had the eternal gratitude of the Ordo Sicarius and he would make sure that we weren't judged for heresy for the events in Kronus." Added Avitus.

"The witch well, she only confirmed what we already suspected, that the planet was also a Tomb World, then we executed her and continued with the purge. The assassin, I don't know but I hope he would be granted the Emperor's Mercy by now."

"Well, this was one interesting tale." Said Cyrus "But we better clear our heads, we will be out of the Warp in a few hours, and you know Force Commander Aramus like his forces always ready for battle." So everyone went to their rooms to prepare whatever the "Hairetic" had planned for them.

But once inside, Cyrus started looking between the the photos he possesed, looking for one in particular until he found it.

The image of a guardsman in the disaster of Kaurava, looking at the bodies of some of Cyrus students, showing nothing but contempt at the fallen Astartes. If only their brothers knew.

Cyrus heard that tale a few times, and he didn't care about it outside its bizarre content, but one time, Avitus mentioned how the traitor Vindicare looked unmasked: Short black hair, sherp eyes, few scars in the forehead and the right cheek and two plugs for a connection with the machine spirits.

Then Cyrus felt the depts of his mind recognizing the figure, and wanting to know the reason for it he excused himself and went for the records of the Chapter. He searched for other traitors, heretics, Inquisitors, Adepts,etc, yet he could not find it until he went the records of his more hated moments.

Kaurava.

He didn't want to revive the folly of Indrick Boreale, but he felt the answer was in this black stain of the history of the Blood Ravens, so Cyrus opened the rescued archives and began to examine the intelligence gathered and went directly about the Kaurava Conservators.

Their Governor-General, their commissars, even their sergeants, and yet no one matched with the description until he looked a image of the battle of Sama District.

A group of Guardsmen were hiding behind a wall protecting them of bolter fire coming from the Sisters of Battle, and some of them lost their helmets, then suddenly Cyrus knew he found the source of his worries.

A soldier with short black hair, sharp eyes, cuts in the forehead and the right cheek and two stitchings in the former. Then Cyrus' mind acted at its own, showing him the full memories.

When the forces of Vance Stubbs almost arrived at the fortress in the Lands of Solitude. Cyrus and his scouts were desperatly trying to destroy the growing morale of the enemy by hunting the commissars, the priests, the BONE'eads and the sergeants when suddenly he felt focused hellgun fire taking down his apprentices. He searched the Kaskrin squad responsible, but what he saw instead still surprises him to this day.

A lone Guardsman was armed with the hellgun was picking the Scouts and Devastators apart, using the chaos of the battlefield to go unnoticed and just when Cyrus had him at his sights, a big Orbital Bombardment inside the fortress signed the end of the Kauravan Crusade and what was left of Boreale's sanity.

Quickly, Cyrus orderned the survivors to retreat and pray the Emperor that His Hammer would show clemency at His Angels' foolishness, but then he got caught in the blast and his last thoughts before losing conscience were cursing the names of Indrick Boreale and Azariah Kyras.

When the awareness returned to him, he saw the dead bodies of his brothers who couldn't escape the Jugdment at Boreale or the Wrath of the Baneblade. Then he saw a Tactical Marine struggling to move to somewhere safe until the both of them heard light footsteps from a lone man, the same man who killed the Neophytes.

Cyrus wanted to kill him, but he lost his left eye and he couldn't feel his arms moving, so he could only watch as how the human full of spite in his face extracted the helmet of the Astartes, then he brought out a Commissar's Bolter and put it in the Marine's head.

The fallen brother only could say "Why?"

"Stubbs? You were in his way." Said the Guardsman "Me? You murdered someone dear." He added with a hint of sadness and frustation in his face, then he pulled the trigger.

Cyrus felt his mind returning to the present, and he immediately went for the records from Kronus, hoping this was just a grim coincidence. But his fears were confirmed once he saw the images of the prisoners from Victory Bay.

It was him, the traitor Vindicare and the Guardsman who killed his apprentices were the same human. Somehow he escaped of the hands of the Inquisition, changed his identity, joined the Imperial Guard in Kaurava and aid them at the massacre of five companies of good men led by a imbecile. Was it a plot from the Ruinous Powers, Ollanius Pius' Retribution or just twisted luck? Still today he doesn't know the answer.

Cyrus looked the photo for last time and he swore as he closed his good eye that if his path crossed once again with the renegade assassin, the Scout Sergeant will make sure the traitor pay for his sins at the Emperor and his students. His will be done.


End file.
